


Sing One More Day of Spring

by harborshore



Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-02-09
Packaged: 2019-10-25 02:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17716613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/harborshore/pseuds/harborshore
Summary: Jack does what he does best, and learns something new.Title fromRitual For the Nightby Harold Heifetz.





	Sing One More Day of Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glorious_spoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/gifts).



Recovery is a bitch. Jack already knew this, but a gunshot wound to the chest is taking what he already knew was a shit process and turning it into a gruelling slog through the trenches. Metaphorical trenches, obviously, LA is too fucking sunny to ever truly resemble the rainy hell of wartime Europe, but every moment is agony and he remembers that all too well from the war. 

“Sousa,” he says in acknowledgement of the door to his room that just clicked open and the telltale thump of the crutch. He doesn’t open his eyes.

“Jack,” Sousa says, clearly amused. Jack peers at him.

“What’s so fucking funny?” he says.

“You—“ Sousa’s mouth quirks. “You look like a little kid who doesn’t want to go to school, covers pulled up to your ears and everything.”

Which, yeah, it is too hot for that, but. He’s not inaccurate, exactly. Jack rolls his eyes and pushes the sheet down to his waist, sitting up with a grunt.

“Did you come over to Stark's to make fun of me, or did you actually have something important to say?”

“How do you know that’s not important?” Sousa says, grinning. 

Raising an eyebrow, Jack waits. 

“Just wanted to make sure you’ll stay here today,” Sousa says, and doesn’t elaborate. 

“You’re moving on them?” Jack says, sitting up way too fast and wincing from the way his wound protests. The shadowy organization Sousa and Carter have been looking for, with at least one very fast and very deadly assassin on their payroll, the one that landed Jack in this bed.

“Yeah,” Sousa says. “We’ve got reinforcements in, Peggy’s scoping it out, we’d like you here while it’s going on so they don’t get any bright ideas about trying again.” Stark hired some very fancy security after the whole Whitney Frost thing. 

“I should come along,” he says, because he fucking should. Carter and Sousa have a tendency to not see all the ways something can go wrong and he’s just—well. Sometimes you need a fucking pessimist, that’s all.

“Yes,” Sousa says. “You could cough weakly at them.”

“Fuck you,” Jack says, automatic response. 

Sousa grins. “Say that again when you can actually put your back into it,” and while Jack stutters to find a response, he leaves, calling “Be good and do what Ana says!” 

Carter doesn’t come by. Jack didn’t expect her to, necessarily, but she’s been by almost every day and he would’ve liked to ask her about the operation. Just to make sure they’ve covered all their bases.

—

The next morning, Jack wakes to a suspiciously quiet and empty house. He gets up, slowly and painstakingly, and goes to the kitchen, where there isn't even a pot of coffee waiting for him, and something is clearly wrong. Ana Jarvis is always up at this hour and Jarvis as well, the latter fussing in the kitchen and the former telling Jack to go back to bed. But they’re nowhere. Neither is Stark, but he is supposed to be gone for a few more days. Jack swallows and makes his slow way to the phone, picking up to call the secure line at SSR HQ. 

At that moment, Jarvis does come in. He’s leaning on Ana, a black eye starting to emerge, and both of them are dirty and disheveled. 

Jack puts down the phone. “What happened?” he demands.

“We’re not sure,” Jarvis croaks, sounding like a man who’s run through fire, and Jack is uncomfortably reminded of the aftermath of bombings, digging friends out of the rubble. 

“There was an ambush,” Ana says, “I was waiting here and I didn’t hear anything from Edwin, and I, oh, I felt so worried I took the other car to go look for him.” She helps Jarvis into a chair, slowly and gently.

Civilians in an operation, Jack still isn’t happy with or used to that.

“And?” he demands.

“I’m honestly not sure what happened,” Ana says. “There were some—some agents are in the hospital, I think, but Edwin didn’t want to go.”

“What about Sousa?” Jack’s hand is clenched tightly on the phone. Sousa, and that crutch. Goddammit.

“Chief Sousa is fine, or was when we left,” Jarvis says. “He’s overseeing the cleanup, I think. Miss Carter—was taken, I believe. There was a commotion, someone knocked me down, and when I came to, she was gone.”

Jack puts the phone down. “I need the address,” he says, “and the car keys.”

They try to tell him it’s a terrible idea, but there’s really only one person who’s been able to make him do something he doesn’t want to do, and no one knows where she is right now.

“At least let me come with you,” Ana says, after a silent glance at her husband, who clearly wishes he could go but equally as clearly has something like three broken ribs, a badly busted shoulder and a wrenched knee. After she supplements her argument with a promise of letting him into Stark’s arsenal before they go, as well as threatens to withhold more painkillers, Jack agrees. 

—

They take off with an assortment of doohickeys in the back of the car. Jarvis gave the few instructions he could, pointing from where he was leaning on the door, sheet-white: “explosives; catches fire when shaken; emits bright light - a _very_ bright light; oh, that, er, not sure, but Mr Stark said it was highly dangerous.”

“Probably a new kind of condom,” Jack muttered, but he brought the weird rubbery-looking thing anyway. Who the fuck knows what goes through Stark’s head at any given time, but it might be useful.

In the car, he takes a moment to consider their situation. Comprehensively fucked, is his assessment, especially considering he can’t really stand up for more than five minutes at a time without his knees going decidedly wobbly. Still, he’s bluffed his way through worse.

Probably a good thing Ana is doing the driving, though. Not that he’d ever say that out loud.

“How are you doing, Chief Thompson?” she says, glancing at him. She’s a less volatile driver than Carter, at least. There’s something to be said for not acquiring most of your driving skills during wartime missions with Captain America.

“Fine,” he says, looking straight ahead.

“I know when I was recovering,” she says, “it took weeks before I felt able to be up and about.”

Well. “I’m fine,” he repeats.

Ana doesn’t respond, but even her silence is skeptical. That’s a feeling Jack knows well from trying to get anywhere in a discussion with Sousa. Carter doesn’t really keep quiet when she disagrees, but Sousa has the loudest way of shutting up of anyone Jack has ever met. 

Ana shifts gears and turns them down an alley. “This way,” she says. “We should be coming up on an SSR roadblock soon, I believe we passed one when we left.” 

They don’t. Instead their path is blocked by a burnt-out car Jack recognizes as a make used by the agency. Shit.

“We’ll have to get out and walk,” he says. “How far are we?” 

“It was in a warehouse, by the docks,” Ana says. So they’re very close. But the SSR perimeter is clearly gone. Jack swallows, rubbing his chest. If the SSR have been attacked here, what happened to Sousa who was supervising the cleanup? Where’s Carter? 

He grits his teeth and gets out of the car. Ana is already loading up with what she can carry. Luckily they opted for the most lightweight of Stark’s creations, and even Jack is able to hold onto a bag of the don’t-poke-them-until-needed explosives, so small they don’t feel or look real.

They do find Sousa. Stretched out on the ground, not moving, and Jack freezes, unable to take another step. Ana bends down to check his pulse and turns quickly to give Jack a thumbs up. 

“Alive,” she says when Jack approaches. Unnecessary, he can see Sousa’s chest moving quite clearly from here. He can’t see anything to indicate why he’s fallen though, and around them are five more agents, equally down for the count but with no visible injuries. 

Sousa’s eyelids flutter and Jack finds himself on his knees next to him, supporting the back of his head and his shoulders, shifting his upper body into his lap. 

“Daniel,” he says, ignoring the way Ana looks at him at the tone of his voice. “Careful, are you alright?”

“Hit by a truck,” Daniel says, coughing. “Feels like it, anyway.” His voice is weak.

“What happened?” Jack says. 

Daniel coughs again. “Fucked,” he says succinctly. “We were blown before we even came. Peggy went in, and then the building went up—“ his voice cracks and Jack’s right there with him, shit.

Blinking rapidly, Daniel continues, “Jarvis came back out, crawling out of the fucking fire. Told us they’d taken Peggy and left him, and when we went around the building we saw a breach in our perimeter, two men down and an SSR car gone. I started—don’t remember, but Ana took Jarvis home at some point, and then something went off. Everything went white. And then you came.”

Shit. This is—shit. Jack tries to think.

“Was Miss Carter wearing her watch?” Ana says suddenly.

Daniel’s forehead furrows. “Yeah,” he says, “I think—I think she was.”  


“We can track her from the car then,” Ana says. “That watch is a gift from Mr Stark. He said he wanted to be able to find her, just, just in case.” 

Jack breathes out. “You show me how to do it,” he says. “And then you get help, all of these men need medical attention.”

“You can’t go after them by yourself,” Daniel protests. Jack has some doubts about that as well, but they’ve already taken too much time over this. 

“Can you stand, Sousa?” he says, brutal and blunt, the way he does best.

Daniel looks betrayed and tries, but he can’t, they both know it. Whatever this mystery weapon was, it hit hard. Jack would dearly like to know where this shadow organization with such excellent tech sprung from. 

“She’ll most likely have rescued herself by the time I get there,” he says airily and Daniel smiles reluctantly. 

“Go,” he says. “Go do what you do best.”

“Bluff and bully my way out of the situation?” Jack says, quoting Carter’s latest tirade when she found out he signed himself out of the hospital.

“Exactly,” Daniel says, who was there for it.

Carefully laying Daniel back on the ground, his jacket propped under his head, Jack goes to the car where Ana is already pulling up a tracking screen showing the tight grid of LA streets in lit strands with a blue dot blinking. Not easy to read unless you’re familiar with LA, but Jack will make do.

“It’s on,” she says, “and unless they’ve removed the watch, she should be where the light is. Bring her back safe, Chief Thompson.”

Jack nods, press face firmly in place, even as he knows that whatever took down a healthy Peggy is probably way out of his league at the moment. But he has to try.  
—

The dot doesn’t move much while he drives. He can feel his chest aching just from holding two hands at the wheel, stitches pulling. 

“Bad idea, Thompson,” he murmurs, glancing again at the screen. He wishes he had some backup, but the LA SSR office were pretty thoroughly taken out by this operation. Some in the hospital, some heading there, Reyes and Stern who were on medical leave already manning the office.

When he gets there, he barely makes it out of the car before there’s an explosion inside the large dark building. Goddammit. But at least that’s a good indication Carter isn’t dead, if things are blowing up. Hobbling towards the entrance as fast as he can, he tries to keep his hand on the bag of tiny explosives steady. And for some reason, he brought the odd rubber sheet, too. Along with his gun, but he’s none too sure of his aim at the moment. 

The door flings open in front of him and out come two people. One is Carter, looking disheveled and bruised and she’s wedged under the shoulder of—Jack has his gun up and aimed before he can even think.

“Hands up or I’ll shoot!” he says. He’d just shoot, but he’s afraid of hitting Carter.

Because. He may have worn a mask last time, but Jack knows that man. He’s the one who shot him.

“No, Jack!” Carter says quickly. Jack blinks at her. She doesn’t look afraid.

“What—Carter, he shot me!”

“Sorry about that,” the man says, and his hands are up. He’s pale, voice scratchy. “I’m afraid I don’t remember, but I don’t doubt your word.” He’s British.

“He’s my brother,” Carter says. “Michael, this is Chief Thompson, who—well, you did shoot him, I’m afraid. Jack, you shouldn’t be out of bed!” she adds, as if she only just now remembered.

“Well, you got yourself captured,” Jack says helplessly. What was he supposed to do?

“I saw Michael,” Carter says, and there’s something so open in her face for a moment that Jack can’t breathe at the sight.

“And why was your brother working with—“ Jack doesn’t quite know how to say “mystery shadow organization with suspiciously advanced technology” quickly so he just gestures at Carter. 

“Hydra;” Michael fills in, looking bleak. “Brainwashing,” he adds, and Peggy turns back to him, one hand on his shoulder, saying something quietly enough that Jack can’t hear it.

“Okay,” Jack says. “So. I guess you don’t need the rescue,” he adds, “but do you maybe want to get out of here?”

“Yes,” Carter says, “excellent idea, Jack.” 

Jack mock-gasps. “I should’ve recorded that,” he says. “No one will ever believe me.”

“Even you have good ideas sometimes,” Carter says, and Jack smiles at her, he can’t do anything but. The world tilts a little, and he has a moment to wonder why Carter suddenly looks worried before everything turns dark.

—

Waking up again, he knows he’s in the hospital before he’s even opened his eyes. He’s really sick of the smell of antiseptic.

“There we go,” and okay, great, Carter is here.

He blinks his eyes open and yeah, she is. A bit banged-up, but upright and talking.

“How do you always come out the best out of these things?” he says, voice croaky as all hell.

“Except for the time she ended up impaled on a bar of metal,” Sousa says, and okay, they’re in the same room. Good. Definitely good. 

Carter looks embarrassed. “Not my finest moment,” she says. “But in fairness, Whitney Frost was involved.”

“Well then,” Jack says, and ends up nearly coughing his lungs out, thoroughly embarrassed by the way Carter rushes to support him and rubs his back through it. She gently helps him lie back down.

“You popped a couple of stitches,” Carter says, “and the doctors think your lungs may have been more affected than they thought at first.”

“What are you doing getting information on my medical condition?” Jack manages, after a couple of attempts.

“I told them I was your fiancee,” Carter says blithely.

“Carter—“ Jack says helplessly.

“Hush,” she says. “You just lie still and get better.”

“And think of England?” he cracks, but it misfires, because she smiles. 

“Sure,” she says. “Get better, and we shall talk, right, Daniel?”

“Right,” Daniel says, and he doesn’t sound like he’s minding Carter putting the moves on him at all. 

Jack shakes his head. He’s not up to coping with any of this. “Are you alright, Sousa?” he says. “Did they figure out what it was?”

“I’m fine,” Daniel says. “My eyes hurt and my balance is even worse than usual, but I’ll be fine.” He sounds tired but mostly fine, especially if he’s making jokes about his leg. Jack glances at Carter, who nods. Good.

“Good,” he says.

“Anyone would think you actually like me,” Daniel says, sounding fond.

Jack does. “Just don’t want to have to take over your job,” he says drily, but the offhandedness is ruined by a massive yawn in the middle.

“Get some sleep,” Carter says, and she’s—touching his cheek. This is definitely odd. And then she kisses his forehead before going over to Daniel to kiss him properly, and Jack’s just—not. Going to deal with any of this.

“There’s a guard on the door,” she tells them both. “But if anyone gets past him, Jack, you blow up that rubber balloon and let it pop. It emits a harmless knockout gas to everyone within a 3-metre radius.” She indicates the rubber “condom” Jack brought with him from Stark’s storage, which is now on the table next to his bed.

Harmless knockout gas you administer to yourself, too, when using it in defense. Great. “Only Stark would make a weapon that knocks you out along with your attacker,” Jack says.

“It’s certainly not perfect,” Carter says, “but it is effective. And besides, I’ll be back soon, I’m just going to check on Michael and then get our more comprehensive counter-counter-operation against Hydra up and running.” 

“Just like that, huh?” Jack says.

“Do you doubt me?” 

No, no, Jack doesn’t doubt her. 

“Never that,” he says, and lets some of what he’s feeling come through in his voice. Carter smiles, looking startlingly vulnerable for a moment, then lets herself out.

“Sousa—“ Jack starts, not sure how to continue.

“Don’t worry about it, Jack,” Daniel says. “Plenty of time to talk about it. Now shut up and let me rest a bit, my eyes still hurt like hell.”

Jack can do that, he guesses. As he closes his own eyes, he thinks about this morning, and about the moment he didn’t know if he’d see them again. He shivers. Maybe they do have to talk.

—

As it turns out, Carter kisses him before he can say anything. And then Daniel hobbles over to his bed and does the same thing.

“We thought we’d better do this before you got the chance to say anything,” Daniel explains, as Carter sits down on his bed and smiles at them both.

“You guys’ve already decided about this, huh,” Jack says, because they look so calm.

“We’re better with you,” Carter says. “And you’re far better with us, Jack, and you know it. Now kiss me again.”

Jack glances at Daniel, still half-convinced something’s going to wake him up from what must be a dream.

“Do as Peggy says,” Daniel says softly. So Jack does, closing his eyes against the light in the room.

**Author's Note:**

> Given how much I massively adore your fic, I really hope you liked this one.


End file.
